Spectrum looks as the stars of the stage in 2009; Where are all those wild things then?; Inside the world of the VIP hustlers who seduced Tiger

British theatre put on quite a performance in 2009, in spite or maybe even
because of the hard times. As our belts tightened this year, a night out at
the theatre turned out to be a necessity, not a luxury, for huge numbers of
us. London theatre alone has seen revenues of more than £81m this year, an
increase of nearly 40% on the year before. Donmar completed a year-long
reduced-price residency in the West End which, across four hit shows
including Derek Jacobi in Twelfth Night and Judi Dench in Mishima, has
contributed spectacularly to the West End's box-office health. Elsewhere,
Lenny Henry made his stage debut at Trafalgar Studios in one of
Shakespeare's most demanding roles: Othello. The Royal Court also staged
some of the year's most successful new plays: Enron by 28-year-old Lucy
Prebble, and Jerusalem, Jez Butterworth's wonderfully baggy
state-of-rural-England play. Commisioning editor Ria Higgins gathered